The recent explosion in contract cheating has given the international community of academic integrity scholars pause for thought. ‘Contract cheating’ is not the same as the less sinister and more widely accepted practice of ‘ghostwriting’ and has ramifications for individuals’ learning outcomes, institutional reputations, educational standards/credibility, professional practice and public safety, particularly if it is somehow normalised as an acceptable way for academic work to be accomplished.The thematic series offers the opportunity for this emerging threat to academic integrity to be explored in-depth, and from multiple perspectives, so that meaningful responses and solutions can be instigated.Read more about submission

Contract cheating occurs when students employ or use a third party to undertake their assessed work for them. Educators and researchers agree that contract cheating is qualitatively different than plagiarism, collusion, or the other relatively minor breaches, and so requires an entirely different approach. A new themed collection offers the opportunity for this emerging threat to academic integrity to be explored in-depth, and from multiple perspectives, so that meaningful responses and solutions can be instigated. The collection has started publishing, check out for new upcoming articles!

The International Day of Action against Contract Cheating is an opportunity to speak up and out against the practice of having academic work done through third parties and then get academic credit for that. Students, universities and groups around the world follow the initiative to raise awareness around this growing threat to higher education. Check out what happens in the social media with the hashtags #defeatthecheat and #excelwithintegrity!

Retraction Watch interviewed Cath Ellis at UNSW Sydney, first author of a recent analysis in the journal about the extent of the problem of custom writing sites, and what troubles her most about these services.

Exploring the potential of authentic assessment to minimise contract cheating

Students utilising online cheat sites to complete assignments has been identified as a significant problem for institutions. Although ‘authenticity’ has long been recognised as a core feature of good assessment practice, its role in nurturing academic integrity has not yet been adequately explored. Conducted over two years (2016 – 2018), this research project, led by the University of South Australia with other partners, will determine if and how authentic assessment may be used to assure academic integrity. Learn more about this project and keep up with updates and outcomes.

A MOOC on Academic Integrity

A free online course on Academic Integrity has just gone live. The course is created by the University of Auckland and is hosted on the Future Learn platform (Educator: Jason Stephens, University of Auckland, NZ). The course will explore academic integrity and how it can be demonstrated in work, study and research at university. Learn more

2005-2014 articles

The archival content of the International Journal for Educational Integrity can be located here.

The IJEI has been accepted in Scopus

The International Journal for Educational Integrity has been accepted in Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Coverage will start soon!

An increasing number of global and local reports is providing a window into corrupt practices in the highly lucrative international education ‘industry’ including: falsification of entry documents, cheating in English language proficiency tests, online contract cheat sites selling assignments, plagiarism, and cheating and fraud in examinations. Little progress appears to have been made in what is an increasingly competitive environment at all levels of education. It is evident that the combination of competition and corruption in education is potentially lethal to academic integrity. This thematic collection invites empirical, theoretical or case study contributions which address this complex interplay of factors and provide fresh insights and recommendations for action.

Paraphrasing tools, translation software and ‘article spinners’ are text-processing applications easily found and accessed via the Internet. Text, ranging from phrases through to longer documents such as essays, can be entered in one field and then ‘spun’, reprocessed or translated. The output can mislead people into thinking that these tools create a new form of original writing. This thematic series offers the opportunity to explore the use of paraphrasing tools, article spinners, translation software and automated text processing as an emerging threat to academic integrity.

The IJEI is in the Web of Science's Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)

The International Journal for Educational Integrity (IJEI), as a scholarly outlet selected and reviewed in ESCI, has been identified as important to key opinion leaders, funders, and evaluators worldwide. ESCI allows researchers to discover new areas of research in evolving disciplines, as well as relevant interdisciplinary scholarly content across rapidly changing research fields. All articles published in this journal are discoverable via the Web of Science with full citation counts, author information and other enrichment.

We are delighted to announce that International Journal for Educational Integrity is now part of the BMC family of journals. The BMC website already receives over 100 million views per year and has expanded beyond biomedicine into a broader area of inquiry to offer a wider portfolio of subject fields on a single platform for authors considering open access publishing. Bookmark our new URL and make sure to sign up to our article alerts so you can keep up with all of the latest research and articles and read more about BMC’s pioneering spirit.

Editor’s quote

"The International Journal for Educational Integrity, now in its 13th year as an open access online journal, is well placed to lead the field in responding to emerging threats to academic integrity. In particular, concerns about contract cheating and ghostwriters have made international headlines. Schools and higher education providers need to collaborate with quality assurance, regulatory and funding bodies, to address this global issue. Authors are encouraged to use the IJEI to publish innovative research that identifies the contexts and causes of contract cheating, and provides evidence-based solutions. I look forward to receiving your submissions.” Tracey Bretag, DEd

Did you know that there are almost 200 open access article processing charge (APC) funds available to researchers worldwide? Many funding bodies require that research publications resulting from their grants are made freely available to all. By publishing your research with us you fully comply with open access mandates, and the publishing costs may be entirely covered by the research grant. This means that you won’t have to pay any publishing fee and you retain the copyright. Check here how to discover and apply for APC funding.